Bound by Our Constitution: Women, Workers, and the Minimum Wage

I HAVE RECEIVED much scholarly, financial, and practical help over the years
that this book has been in the making. The formal awards, and the old and new
friendships I have depended upon, are all greatly appreciated. But the views
expressed are, of course, my responsibility alone and not necessarily those of
any of these institutions or individuals.

The book has been written both despite and because of my teaching at two
institutions whose faculty and students have taken time and been generous
with ideas and comments in return. The University of Sussex nurtures interdisciplinary work; a succession of deans of the School of English and American Studies, John Whitley, John Rosselli, Colin Brooks, and Bob Benewick,
have granted leave and travel funds at various moments since 1981. From
1982 to 1984, a visiting post teaching American government at Smith College
brought new comparative perspectives, proximity to archives, funding to interview Clara Beyer, and research assistance from Susan Pollack and Tamar
Raphael. At Smith, Martha Ackelsberg, Dorothy Green, Philip Green, Mary
McFeely, and members of the Mellon Project on Women and Social Change
gave much help.

Two periods of uninterrupted research and writing have been invaluable.
An American Studies fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and a guest scholarship at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.,
started the research rolling in 1981; I am grateful to Martha Derthick and other
members of the Brookings Governmental Studies Program. A fellowship at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, also in Washington, D.C.,
in 1988, brought the work closer to completion, aided by Michael J. Lacey
and the Division of United States Studies and especially by comments from
James B. Gilbert and James T. Patterson. Most generous of the generous resources provided by the Wilson Center was the assistance of Toni Horst, an
outstanding researcher whose work has made the book more complete and
more accurate. Finally, many loose ends were tied up on a return visit to the
Wilson Center as a guest scholar in 1993, aided by Amy Meselson.

My access to archives has also been funded by a historical research award
from the Twenty-Seven Foundation, a social science grant from the Nuffield
Foundation, and a travel award from the U.S./U.K. Fulbright Commission. And
my use of those archives has depended greatly on the expertise and advice of
archivists and librarians, especially at the Schlesinger Library, the Franklin D.
Roosevelt Library, the AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts and New York State
Departments of Labor, and, in London, at the Public Record Office, the Trades
Union Congress, and the British Library of Economic and Political Science at
the London School of Economics. I am grateful to the Harvard Law School
library both for advice from Erica Chadbourn and for permission to quote from

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